African Cichlid Water Chemistry

A

Alex

Members
Advice?

I have owned my African Cichlid tank for about 2 months and have had 5 fish in the tank for about 5 weeks of the time.

I have had ich in the first two weeks and had to treat for that then I had a 6th fish become sick with "Velvet Disease" and I and to remove him. Since then, I have experienced water chemistry inconsistencies and I've been told that's because the tank is still new.

I first had my ammonia levels go up and then all of a sudden, I had my Nitrite levels skyrocket over a 5 day period but since then I've quickly learned, "if it's polluted, dilute it," by making frequent water changes. Once I began making water changes the tank has returned to homeostasis and the fish are doing well. I even had one fish begin to show signs of some sort of sickness prior to the frequent water changes, become reclusive, and then when I started showing frequent water changes, the fish magically came back.

Is what Im describing typically for this new fish tank? Once the tank breaks in a little bit more, will I not need to make as may water changes?

Advise?

Alex
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
Very typical, look into the nitrogen cycle its a process first ammonia spikes, bacteria that uses ammonia then forms and converts it to nitrite. Then nitrite spikes then new bacteria that uses nitrites forms amd comverts them to nitrate. Your tank is cycling and this cycle takes time to complete. There is now magic amount of time but you can monitor the process by testing water. As you said if your getting ammonia but no nitrite or nitrate its the beggining then towards the middle ammonia begins to drop amd nitrite spikes. Towards the end nitrite drops amd nitrates rise. Nitrates are okay to an extent amd the easy way to lower them is to do water changes. This is a nut shell but if you search the forums for "cycle" or "nitrogen cycle" you could read for days.

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